She, Who Learned the Game
by AnnaUnknown
Summary: Aurelia Potter was not someone to mess with and, quite frankly, it pissed her off that people thought they could. In a world where the Chosen One is a girl who doesn't mind getting her hands dirty, does Voldemort really stand a chance?


There was a time in her life that if she had been told that her life rests in the lines of a poem spouted by one of those mumbo-jumbo, Galleon hounds that claim to possess the "Sight," she'd have laughed outright. There was no way under Gaia's blue skies she was going to put much stock into a magic form that people study to avoid doing any real work, not when there were many more sure ways to predict the future. All the so called Seers predicted the same things anyway, just like any rip-off Muggle versions of them. You either win it all, or you die. It bored her.

And yet, here she was, falling prey to a prophecy. A true prophecy given by an alcoholic Seer. She simply didn't believe it when she and her bonded were told. She put it from her mind for months, talking over her bonded when he mentioned it. He took it seriously. Of course he would. He was raised with these things. But she refused to listen.

Still, when the seventh month began to wane, she kept her fingers crossed behind her back. Let it be the other one. A horrible thought for the child of one of her closest friends, but one she could not quite keep herself from thinking.

It wasn't enough.

Her child was born safely, that much was good. But at the wrong time. A terrible time. If she had held off for just one more minute, perhaps then they would be safe.

Now, her heart was beating hard enough to consume the unnerving silence around her as she stood facing the door. Her chest heaved with each breath and her eyes flicked to every part of the door. She could feel their own broken wards and the one this monster had put in place to keep them in. There was no way out. Years of training in witchcraft, and her precious gift, as her parents called it, gave her no respite in this moment.

She wanted to be brave. She wanted to be the shining example of her house from Hogwarts, but all of her Gryffindor bravery failed her. Her bonded was dead; her magic could feel it and it took all of her strength to keep standing in spite of the fact. Her bonded was dead and she would be too soon. But her daughter – her daughter would live.

That knowledge; that was what kept her standing. With no wand and no escape. Her daughter would live, and she would be damned if she was going to let any pureblood fanatic change that fact.

For a year she scoured every book she could get her hands. Spells, potions, rituals, and vows. Dark and light, it meant nothing now. With access to two of the biggest libraries in the country, thanks to the lightest and the darkest pureblood families around, she managed to find magic that had been kept hidden for centuries.

There many different types of magic wielders in the world. Wizards and witches just happened to be the majority, and the majority tends to oppress those who are different from them. It is because of this exact reason that only wand magicks are taught in schools in Europe. It is because of this that so many rituals and spells are hidden. But she found them.

Druids are like witches and wizards. They are the same in appearance and their magic is their life source, just the same. But they choose to practice magic through energies from the elements. They are renowned for their skill with rituals of all kinds, including those that protect.

Protection is what her daughter needed. If this prophecy were to come true, as it seemed to be, she would need to be protected at all costs from this monster. She needed to grow strong and to learn to wield her already incredible power so that she might just stand a chance against her enemy, and rid the world of him at last. Even if she and her bonded could not take care of her any more, their friends could. They could find her the best tutors in the world and take her away from the hell-ridden England.

There was a ritual she found. One that, on the surface, would be labeled Dark and would have her wasting away in Azkaban without a second glance. Her bonded hesitated when she brought it to him first. He told her the risks. This wasn't kid stuff, he told her, this was serious. She had to be sure that she wanted to use something like this, because there was quite a price to pay if someone found out. He even went so far to point out that the Fidelius Charm was quite enough to hide them until they could find a way to leave the country.

It wasn't enough. She could feel herself growing paranoid about even their closest friends, not that she would dare tell him that.

She told him no one would know. Not ever. Not even their daughter would know. No one would ever even speak the name of the ritual. They would think it was luck. Maybe they would think it was a mother's love, as ridiculous as that idea was. Whatever they thought, it didn't matter. Their daughter would not die. All it needed was some blood, some obscure potion ingredients that were easy to get when one is married to one of the most influential purebloods in Europe, and just about all of her core in amounts of magic.

It took months. Several full moons came to pass and finally the runes and the potions were ready at last. The ritual itself took hours. It hurt all three of them for the full length of it, but when it came to pass, there was a glow around their daughter that nothing could penetrate. They weren't sure how long it would last or how much it could stand up to, but they didn't dare test it.

She and her bonded knew they would die before their daughter could be touched. They modified the ritual a bit. When the time came, they would each pour whatever magic they could into the magic surrounding their daughter, in one last hope that they could strengthen the protections.

And the time is now.

The monster himself had burst through the door, casting aside the furniture blocking it as though it were nothing. There were words coming from his mouth and in turn from hers, but she could hardly register what was being said.

She was going to die. But her daughter - her precious baby - would live.

She saw that putrid green light at the same time that she heard those words, and her mind whispered one thing. With all her might and all her magic, she thought just one thing, as the Olde Magicks told her to do.

 _Aurelia._

* * *

 _His_ daughter. It always came back to _him_ somehow. Over a decade and still, he was faced by the ghost of a dead enemy. It wasn't enough to be tormented for years, but to finally have reprieve from _him_ and _his_ insipid friends and have it just snatched away by the arrival of none other than _his_ spawn.

He had known for years that she would be coming. The Headmaster simply did not let anyone forget about her existence. Every time he turned around it was another offhand comment about wondering what the "precious" girl would be like when she arrived. Would she favor her mother or her father? Would she be best in Charms or Transfiguration?

Like he bloody well cared. The arrival of that girl meant the arrival of dead memories and dead men, and in his opinion, they would all be better off without it. She might be the destined savior of the world, but as far as he was concerned, she was going to be a bloody nuisance just like her father.

He sure was right. And wrong, too.

From day one, that girl was causing trouble and stirring up storms, dragging her goons behind her. Everyone loved it. She was the Girl-Who-Lived. She could do no wrong.

He almost believed it when she turned those wide eyes on him. But he saw in those eyes what others couldn't. She was an arrogant, cold, and conniving little girl who had no regard for the lives she put in danger when she went on these little adventures. She was just like her father, and those horrid friends of his. And he thought this way of her for years.

A part of him recognized his bias. He was not a nice man, he knew that. He did nothing to hide his disdain for others in his sneer and deep glare. He didn't shy away from the hatred he received in return. It all meant nothing. Nothing in comparison to losing her. Nothing in comparison to losing himself. The words and judgments of petty, small minded people. He was a bat, a Death Eater, a slime-ball.

There were some who tried to insist there was something deeper in him, but he knew at his core, he was heartless and dead. There was no returning on that. He felt nothing for the people he worked with, the people he saved, or the children he watched over. He felt only one feeling: the need for revenge. Because there was a time that he felt as much as any. There was a time that he carried light within him. But he followed the wrong people under false pretenses and had the light in him snuffed to dust.

He would get his revenge on the false lord, even if it meant playing caretaker for the scapegoat of the light. Even if it meant being lead around on a leash by an old man. He would bide his time and wait for the right moment. He would attend those silly little meetings over the years, he would put his Mastery to use for Healing, he would sneak around behind closed doors like he knew he needed to, and he would pretend to be on both sides as was expected of him. He would bear the brunt of hatred time and time again, helping those who scorned him. But when it came down to it, he didn't care about them.

Why should he care, he asked her once when she confronted him, chin raised and eyes blaring, when he was nothing more than a dead man walking?

He had stopped living a long time ago, when _she_ did. There was simply no point in pretending to be some light hero when he wasn't. He didn't care what side won, because he was not outliving this war. The self-proclaimed Dark Lord would fall, of that he was certain, but beyond that, he couldn't be bothered to extend his efforts. Let the purebloods and what not rain hell down on the wizarding world, he would not be around to see it.

He had hardly ever said so aloud but even he was shocked by the venomous words that slipped past his lips. He had stared at her in the silence that hung around his office like a cloak, waiting for her disgust and her judgement.

Instead she laughed. He knew then she was probably demented. Laughing in the face of a man who just said he didn't care if people were tortured and oppressed? How mad does one have to be?

"How endearing," she said as she calmed down from her laughter, "you've even fooled yourself."

Oh, she was cold and conniving alright. Just not quite in the way he had imagined. He didn't really know what she was. She certainly was an actress, if anything. Or a politician. One in the same, really.

But he couldn't be bothered to wonder after the girl-wonder. He had more important things to worry about. That insufferable brat could try as she might to make him out to be some bloody fool hero but he would have nothing to do with it.

Yet here he was, years later, following her into one of the worst battles in history. She has twisted him into some soft worm that actually _cared._ He was almost disgusted with himself. What had he allowed her to do?

The climax of the battle was coming. His ears were ringing, one of his fingers missing, his knee banged up. He would probably need a cane after this. The lights of magic were blindingly ripping around him, but they were slowing down. Or he was slowing down. Something was happening, he just couldn't figure it out.

Then he saw her. She was tossing her wand aside, blood dripping from her body from wounds he couldn't see.

It was at this moment, as he stepped up next her, his wand long lost, that he realized himself. A hero he might not be, but neither was he a villain. He had thought his duty almost done. She was winning, and the other was losing. It would be done soon.

But when she looked at him before rushing into the fray, he saw. He knew it was never done. The fight would always go on, as would life.

And he thought he was ready to take that on. So he smiled slightly, a somewhat new affliction for himself. Her eyes blazed with power, so he bowed his head, utter faith encompassing him.

"Potter."

* * *

She was always his reason for living, ever since he had seen her wide green eyes blinking blearily up at him from his arms. They were so much like her mother's but deeper, and far more beautiful. Or at least he thought so. And he swore from the moment she looked at him that he would die for her. Without question. Without hesitation.

They wanted to name him godfather. It was such an honor, to be the chosen caretaker of this precious gift in a time when it was highly likely that her parents would perish. There was no higher honor to be asked to fulfill. It would tie him and her together forever and he could always be there to make sure no harm would ever come to her.

And he refused the offer.

His best mate's wife just blinked when he said no. She shook her head as though she has water in her ears. His best mate flinched as though he had been slapped. No? The highest honor they could give him in their lives and his answer was no?

He thinks that's where it began. With his answer, a seed of doubt was placed in their minds. How loyal could he really be if he refused to be tied with familial bonds to their daughter? His reason for why hardly helped him as well.

He had a feeling, he told them. He wasn't supposed to be bonded to her in that way. His best mate's wife eyes flared with anger. What did he mean, he wasn't supposed to?

He couldn't find another way to explain it. It was just this feeling he had, he tried to explain. Something telling him it wasn't right.

Years later, he could definitely say that is where it began. They had known other friends to turn on each other in the war. They could hardly be blamed, since no one could really be sure who was on what side. But they had sworn, him and his mates, that they wouldn't do that to each other. The odds were stacked against them, but let them be damned if they were going to let this war ruin their friendship as well as everything else.

He laughed bitterly in reflection of their naivety back then. Once the girl was born, everything went downhill. It was understandable that his best mate's focus went from trying to defeat the enemy for the sake of good to focusing all his efforts on protecting his daughter. They never really explained why they were so paranoid about it, but he figured it was an understandable time to be extra protective of the very little children left still alive. When they asked him to be Secret Keeper, he answered yes without hesitation. He couldn't be the girl's godfather, but he could certainly tie his blood to their land to keep them hidden.

But then, of course, his paranoia got the best of him. His family was on the other side of the war. Surely, by now, they had let all know of his connection to the Light, and how close he was to those who were close to the very picture of the Light. They would come after him as soon as they got wind of his friends disappearing from the face of Britain. He was fairly confident of his ability to face torture and not give away his friends, but what better way than for someone else, someone no one would suspect, to be the real Secret Keeper in the event that he was taken?

He suggested it to them. It was dark times though, and they were suspicious of his motives. At least his best mate's wife was. With their child on the line, they could take no chances. They didn't even speak of their least fortunate friend anymore, who had been missing for almost three months.

He explained that no one would suspect the rat. He was the least talented of the four and no one had ever accused the man of being of any particular interest.

From there came the worst mistakes of their lives. His moment of genius paranoia left him two friends short, locked in a cell in the worst prison in the world with not a soul listening to his pleas of innocence.

Dark times never really ended for him. His mind had been slowly being torn apart by the demons called Dementors, and even now, free from their grasps, he was still haunted by the effects. He couldn't pretend to be some paragon of Light any more, though he hardly qualified to begin with.

Things had really gone south for a long time. And now, even though things had been horrible for a long time, they had their way of looking up. He was free now. He was free and reunited with his remaining friend and he had something to live for now that wasn't merely his need to go after the rat. He had her. She really was something. She was nothing like her parents and everything like them, he couldn't really decide. But regardless of her likeness to them, she was amazing.

Like he had known from the moment he first held her in his arms, he would die for her. Not only would he die for her, but he would kill for her. He would fight by her side and stay by her side, if possible, until the last breath rattled from his body. He would only leave her if she so wished. He had doubted her once, but he would never do so again. He was hers.

She has laughed the first time he had ever said that. He would have felt injury if it weren't for the feeling he had within himself that she was not laughing at him, but out of puzzlement at why he would need to do such a thing.

There was no feeling of obligation within him, he told her. He didn't do this out of duty to her parents or to the Light or to relieve his guilt for the things he caused in the first war. He did this because he wanted to, he needed to, and he was destined to. He admitted he was a little affected now from his extended prison stay, but it had not diminished his ability.

The pure want must have shined through in his eyes because her own softened and she conceded to allow him to take his place as her protector. She said her words and he said his, binding him in the way he knew he was meant to be bound. Forever and always.

For Aurelia.

* * *

When he was a young man, he considered himself somewhat of a gift to the wizarding world. His power was evident from his toddling days, when his accidental magic had half of the house zooming around his parents' heads. It was evident in the steady gaze he had when faced by the rowdy neighborhood children. It was evident in his ease of learning and it was certainly evident when his letter to Hogwarts arrived ten years early.

His parents were shocked. Yes, they were purebloods with a long history in magical Britain, dating back to the arrival of the Danes. But they were merchant class. Magic they had, power was only so-so. To have a son of his prowess, it was a gift and a blessing on the family name. Before, no one knew their names. Now, with the rumors of his early acceptance to Hogwarts, neighbors stopped them in the market to ask of their prodigal son.

They brought in the best tutors they could possibly find, spending as much as they could to ensure their son's success. By the time he received his Hogwarts list of materials, his attendance to the great school could almost be considered useless. Some even dared to ask his parents why send him at all when they could apprentice him to a master. But his parents had grown proud. All those who became great attended one of the five greatest schools of magic in the world and their son would be no different. He was going to be great, and therefore his education would match his ability.

So off to Hogwarts he went. He was the top of class in every single topic placed before him. There was no challenge of which he could not overcome. The only competition he faced was in a foreign boy who had been placed in his House's opposite. The boy was second to him in all subjects, giving him quite the run for his money, as the Muggles say.

He hated him. It was actually the only person he hated in his memory. All others at the school were either quite below his notice or enjoyable to be around when he wasn't studying. He knew he was a popular boy in his years and was slowly gaining popularity amongst the other years too. Some tried to mock him for his low status but he quickly had them quieted with his impressive dueling abilities.

But still, this one boy, could not be cowed. He smirked at him in classes, seemingly unbothered by his second place status. It infuriated him. How dare this foreigner remain unfazed by his power, even after numerous shows of why he should be?

He wrote to his mother about hundreds of times, each time her repeating the same advice. Stay focused on your studies and pay little head to those who wish to undermine you.

The advice became more prudent in the summer following his first year at Hogwarts when some local muggle boys had attacked his younger sister. They had seen her practicing magic and had come after her, as magic was still feared even in those times. They had pelted her with rocks and other objects, calling her a freak and all sorts of other names. They probably would have killed her if their father hadn't arrived and blasted them all with magic.

He had been carted off to Azkaban immediately. And the shame he felt his family grew immediately. His sister had gone mad as a result of the abuse at the hands of those Muggles. It was shameful. He distanced himself from them, immersing himself amongst his studies, going on long walks without warning.

Once he had run into that foreign boy he hated so much. And oh had the hatred grown in the absence.

The boy smirked at him and teased him for his stupid sister getting taken down by a bunch of Muggles, and for his rash father getting caught in giving them what they deserve. For all his training, he completely forgot about magic as he rushed the boy, a scream in his throat. He punched and kicked, and the boy punched and kicked back just as much, laughing all the why.

When finally his rage died and his energy was depleted, he stepped away from the bloodied boy, bruises covering himself as well. Why do you laugh, he asked the boy.

And the boy told him it amused him to see one of the great wizards-to-be wasted his talents on getting best marks in school when he could be working for a much larger goal, the Greater Good.

Slowly, he smiled.

The boy became his closest friend, despite what his mother and angry brother had to say about it. They spent all their time in each other's company, devising plan after plan to reform the magical world. For years, they learned as much as they could, growing with each other's help. They saw the awe in the gazes of those around them and their egos grew bigger.

How horrible things turned out to be because of them, he reflected later in his life. He himself was certainly a majority of the problem then, but his friend had grown mad with his need to reform the world. His suggestions became more and more forceful as time went on, and it changed from simply reforming the magical world to also conquering the Muggle one. He certainly wasn't a fan of Muggles after what some of them did to his sister, but some of them was the key. They couldn't all be bad. They were simply better off not interacting with them at all.

But his friend did not agree. And their disagreements grew worse and worse as time went on, to the point that they eventually dueled each other with every intent of finishing the other one off. And that could have been well enough if his sister hadn't tried to stop it all.

Now, it was decades after that horrid day, and he feared he was still making the same mistakes he did as a young man. He still thought himself a gift to the magical world, no matter how much he had tried to humble himself after imprisoning his friend forever. He refused to allow himself power of the government, though he could have easily gotten it. Instead he taught. He advised governmental councils when they asked for it, but for the most part he kept to himself and passed his knowledge onto the next generations.

However, he couldn't exactly ignore his power. With great power, comes great responsibility. When war broke out again, he was yet again placed at the forefront with other great powers. But this time around, he was privy to things that no others knew about and the power got to his head once more.

He fancied himself puppet master, with all these wonderful pieces to play with. And what did he gain from it? More power, certainly, but the deaths of many.

There certainly weren't many who were willing to call him out on it. There were some who thought his ultimate goal was to gain power over the magical world. There were misled, of course, but they were almost right.

Then there was her. In the rubble of the first war was the child who would be the salvation of the next. She bore the mark on her head and the power in her veins. She would grow to become one of the greatest witches in all of his history, of that he was sure.

Naturally, this feeling he had about her became his justification for the horrible things he let happen to her over the years. It was only now that he knew that the means do not always justify the ends.

She certainly wasn't one to shy away from telling him that either. His power didn't frighten her, and after only a few short months, it had failed to awe her either.

He chuckled in memory of his early days with her. She was nothing like he had ever seen before. He had predicted she would be great, but his short time with her had solidified the idea. Great she was.

The Girl-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, the Reformer, the Savior, the Leader of Lost Souls.

Aurelia.

* * *

If he was entirely honest, it was more than a little frightening to have his whole world flipped upside down. To be so sure of your convictions and ideas for most of your life, and then to have them turned inside out by the very people who had raised him that way in the first place.

He was always on top of the world. As an only child to a prestigious family name with a hefty fortune backing them, he was the center of the universe. Anything he wanted, he got. Everyone was beneath him, less than him, and he made sure they knew it.

It was hardly argued against by his parents. He was everything to them and they made sure he wanted for nothing. Of course, he still had to live up to his family name and become an expert in some magics, business, and politics. He had to maintain this family when he was older after all. From the moment he started walking, he had tutors following him around. It gave him a distinct advantage later when he began to attend Hogwarts.

His father always encouraged that he seek out those children of good family names. They would be the ones he would be dealing with when he began to manage the family. Make sure they understood who he was and what he was willing to do to further his family.

He did as he was told. After all, if his father said it would work in his favor, he was sure to be right. His father was a great man, one of the best in wizarding Britain, and if he said this was the way, that's what it was.

His biggest goal was to be exactly like his father.

When he went to Hogwarts, he did everything he supposed his father expected of him. He introduced himself to the heirs of big names, and even some who weren't heirs but were still a part of the ancient and noble houses. He even tried to introduce himself to celebrity of year. That went disastrously, however. He hadn't expected her to be as, well, _light_ as she was. He had offended her in no less than two minutes and she had done the same in turn to him.

Instantly, he hated her. He had offered his friendship and guidance and she spurned him. Him! The heir to the most important ancient and noble house!

Once she had been sorted in his house's biggest opponent, he immediately knew he had to do his best to derail her every chance for greatest. From that Sorting Feast onward, he followed her movements ceaselessly. She was his enemy and Merlin be damned if he wasn't going to make sure she regretted it.

One could say he was obsessed. But that would be a grave mistake to suggest to him if anyone wanted to keep their wits about them. Sure, he sabotaged her work when possible, always knew what she was up to, always kept track of her shenanigans, and gave his every effort to try and best her, but he was _not_ obsessed.

It was after third year that his petty schoolyard rivalry became less important. There were bigger powers moving around, bigger threats to him and his family now.

In the first war, his father had been a big supporter of the Dark Lord. He was one of the Dark Lord's best fighters, both in the political arena and the battle field. But when his Lord's great cause had crumbled to nothing, he had ceased to be a champion of his Lord's cause any further. He pled leniency for being forced to follow the Dark Lord's bidding by Imperius Curse.

No one had thought the Dark Lord would ever return. Why lay your life down for a cause that had failed? Some of them had families to think about.

It seemed that that mentality was coming back to haunt them. There were whispers before he reached his eleventh birthday that the Dark Lord was stirring beyond the grave. After his first year, his father accepted a task that was told to be for the benefit of the cause they had once fought for. It fell through and now their family was faced with the fear they would pay for their wavering loyalty when that Dark Lord returns.

His father sat him down in the parlor of their Manor the moment he came back from Hogwarts. He told him the game was changing now and they had to change with it. He tried to argue against his father, saying they could help the Dark Lord. They bring glory upon on their name again.

His mother looked fit to slap him silly.

They pried his eyes open forcefully, making him see what supporting the Dark Lord really was. He was bound to lose this time and they didn't want to be on that end of it when it happened.

He was forced to swallow his pride. His family was not the great, unwavering force he'd thought it to be and now he had to deal with it.

It was no easy task but somehow he made friends with his enemy. She treated him like he was important when no one else could bare to look at him. Despite the hundreds of insults and attacks he had sent her way over the years. Despite the numerous times he went after her friends, using his societal status to belittle them as much as possible. Despite his family's allegiance. Despite all of this, she looked at him unflinchingly when he changed his mind and took him in.

He wanted to stay out of the fighting, but here he was, jumping at the chance to help like a dog does for a bone. Pathetic.

It seemed like time had frozen in place in the middle of a battle. There was blood dripping from a wound on his forehead into his eyes and he did nothing more than blink it away.

A blast of light had stopped a centimeter from his nose. It was green like death, promising his. It was the only stream of magic not moving. All those around him continued to flash. Slowly, while his heart raced, he moved from in front of the stream. The moment he was not directly in front it, it sped back into motion, exploding against the stone wall behind him.

Amazed, he looked around him. No one was looking at him, not even whoever had shot that killing curse his way.

Through the fray, he saw eyes the flashed like the curse that had just nearly laid claim to his life. One winked at him.

He laughed, shaking his head.

"Potter!"

* * *

He was laying on top of something fairly uncomfortable. He couldn't move away from it though, feeling like he was drifting to some other realm. The muggles have a theory that before death, a person relives their life beginning to end as the brain cells slowly die. It was a rather loose theory, in his opinion, since they couldn't exactly ask the dead what they experienced in the moments before death. But he figured whatever he was experiencing now was akin to what they theorized. He could feel his body slowly failing, while his mind raced back years and years. This was it. He was dying after such a short life.

When his uncle threw him out a window as a child, he thought for sure that he was destined to be no more than a spot of shame for his family. He had no great power, nothing worth talking about, much less bragging about.

It was noticed when he was quite young. He had no bouts of accidental magic to speak of in the family, unlike his parents before him and almost everyone in his ancestral line. Squibs were very rare in his family, and his likelihood of being one was a controversial topic throughout all branches of his family.

He was the heir to an ancient and noble house in magical England. He was to be the head of said family one day, handling their finances, protections, family issues, and business. Originally, he could have gone decades without stepping into this role, leaving plenty of time to train and gain experience. But war does terrible things and now he would have to fill those shoes upon his majority.

He showed no sign of living up to this responsibility. Quite naturally, word began to fly through his family. The closest of his family tried their hardest to force the magic from him. The rest – well, they sought to take advantage of his inability to perform as needed.

People suspected that his grandmother was the root of the doubt of his power due to her severity in nature. It was true she was hardly the homey, knit-a-sweater type of grandmother, but she wasn't the type to stand by the blatant abuse of a child. He was the son of her favorite son; he was all she had left of him. She was going to make sure he succeeded in any way she could. Naturally she preferred the tough love approach, attempting to harden him against the harshness of the world. So she allowed the commentary on his power. Even then, she had some boundaries on what she would allow.

It had been at the gathering celebrating his ninth name day that he tearfully confessed to his grandmother that she ought to find a new heir for their family. He had spent the morning being mocked by his cousins, finally being shoved into the shores of the lake and being laughed at when his magic did not surge up to protect him. He presented himself, soaking, to his grandmother in the parlor.

She was outraged. She had grabbed him by the arm and marched into the courtyard where their family members were gathered. She didn't require a sonorous to get their attention in her rage. Her words carried over each one of them. She harshly degraded them for lowering themselves to gossiping and conspire against a child whose magical core had clearly not settled yet.

Still, despite his grandmother's distant support of him, he struggled with himself in every waking moment. He was clumsy, blushing, and fumbling. He could hardly stand up straight or speak a full sentence without falling all over himself. It was because of this that, unlike most kids, he dreaded Hogwarts. He, like most of his family, was shocked he was even invited to attend the notorious school, and was largely afraid of proving himself not worthy to attend.

Of course, he could barely manage to board a simple train without causing a ruckus. Within the first half hour of boarding the train and it pulling away from the station, he'd already managed to rip his robes, hit someone with his trunk, and lose his pet that his grandmother had just given him.

He was a mess. And he couldn't understand for the life of him why someone like her would have any interest in him. Her name was spoken by every witch and wizard in Britain, and maybe even throughout Europe. She was going to be a legend, whose name would go down in history. Everyone knew she held great power. Yet, somehow, she chose to be friends with him.

She had been there through every stumble up the steps and every magical mishap, defending him fiercely against other people. She, who hardly knew anything about the world she was in now, found a way to encourage him to grow. She told him she sensed great power in him, and that the sooner he realized it himself, the more he could show those who doubted him.

At the beginning of their schooling, he was often teased by other boys for being friends with her. Someone has a crush, they'd say. They would remind him that no witch like her should be wasting time being friends with him. Clearly they didn't know her very well.

She had a way with broken things and lost souls. It was almost like she collected them, finding the misfortunate people as she went through life, holding them close to her life, and lifting them up to find their way for themselves. There certainly was no shortage of these people in magical Britain. Some liked to suggest she did this to use these people who were down on their luck, but every good person has people who want to tear them down. They didn't like to see the broken things and lost souls become real. They didn't like to see these people and beings rise up beyond their level, achieving far more than they ever could.

That was what she did. She was more than a hero or whatever they thought she was any more. She believed in him, and the rest of them, when no one would. She led them to find their potential when they couldn't do it by themselves.

Of course, he didn't completely idolize her. They might make her a saint in the future, but he did not see the world through rose colored glasses as he did when he first met her. She made mistakes just as much as anyone else did, which is why as he grew into his own he became more and more steadfast on remaining frank with her. If she did something that she shouldn't, he was there to remind her who she was. If she lost track of her true mission, he was there to snap her back into place. She had others who did this too, but he knew at the end of the day, she was turning to his council before all else.

Staying with her led to where he lay now. He didn't regret a thing. He made his family proud. He kept his friends safe. He saw his parents avenged. And now, in these last moments, he knew he saw her to the end of this battle. He held on to the images of his friends and family as he felt himself slipping away. The good times they managed to find amongst the bad – the holidays, late nights, balls, parties, laughs, traveling, and the magic of it all. If he could do it all again, he'd do it all the same. All those moments shared with them would not have happened without her. She brought them all together, leading them through the dark times with the weight of her fate on her shoulders.

She was more than a hero. She was the slicing of treacle tart at dinner, she was a laugh on the wind, she was the rage in the storm, she was the moonlight that showed the path in the night.

She was _Aurelia._

* * *

As a child, she had loved to swing on the swings at the play yard down the street from her family's house. She would swing as high as she could go, letting her mind wander, thinking over the things she learned and wondering what kind of life lay before her.

In her opinion, one could never learn enough. There was always more to know. For as long as she could remember, she had been stuffing her nose into a book, absorbing a world's worth of knowledge day by day. It sufficed as a distraction from her reality of constant scorn and derision that she faced in school and in the play yard.

Her parents tried to convince her that those kids were just jealous of her intelligence. People often make fun of those who show themselves to be better than them in some way. She was different and people didn't often like those that were different.

How different she proved to be. It was midsummer before her eleventh birthday when a cat appeared on their front step. When she opened the door, the cat walked right in as though she had always done so. She followed the cat into the living room, where her parents were, bemused by what was happening.

Before her parents could even ask why she had let an animal into the house, the cat changed right before their eyes into a woman. And so came the revelation.

A witch. She, the daughter of two dentists, was a witch. Not only that, but she was judged to have enough potential power to attend the most prestigious wizarding school in the world, Hogwarts.

Suddenly, it was like her dreams had been answered. She had wished and wanted a place to be accepted for so long, and here it was, handed to her on a small parchment paper. A world of magic.

Her parents were very proud. She had power and she was going to one of the best schools in the world. What more could they ask for in their only daughter. But with their pride came worry in her. She realized that she was heading into a world that she knew nothing about. She might have been the smartest girl at her school before, but how would she compare when going up against children who have been surrounded by magic since they were born?

The moment she could get her hands on books about the magical world, she pored over every last one of them. She bought books beyond what was required of her for classes, exasperating her parents who indulged her. She attempted to learn what other magical children would have already been raised with, plus more, hoping to be on par with the power and prestige she expected to be surrounded by.

In some ways, it had helped her. She was at an extreme disadvantage for not being raised around magic. But in others, she found herself in the exact position she had been in her non-magical school. She knew too much, and somehow too little at the same time. She was constantly learning more and more about the world around her, instantly becoming the top student in her year in every class, besting those who had already begun to mock her. Still, she had the knowledge about a lot of magic, but she didn't have any knowledge in social skills.

By some miracle, she managed to squeeze her way into some groups but it was made very apparent from day one that she was only kept around because they could copy her homework or because they didn't know how to get rid of her. A small part of her understood how overbearing she was being but she just couldn't stop.

Things got even worse in fourth year when she began her campaign for the house elves. To her, half of the wizarding world was proving to be barbaric and backwards. It was just wrong to enslave an entire species of beings in such a brutalizing way. She would not stand for it.

Unfortunately for her, no one agreed with her. Not even the other muggleborns at Hogwarts. She grew more and more isolated amongst her schoolmates.

It's funny in hindsight how she used to loathe the very girl who ended up turning her life around. The girl in question was raised by Muggles, yet she acted like a pureblood like the best of them in her opinion. She found the girl to be rude and infuriating, and made sure she knew as much every chance she could. That girl hated her back just as much, telling her she should take her nosy self elsewhere and keep out of her business.

She could kick herself now. For years she had lived in the same room as this girl and could not even see her for who she saw. Instead, she fancied herself the kicked puppy of Hogwarts, the poor little witch who had done nothing and was still treated poorly.

The girl tore her apart and hung her out to dry. It was the best thing that had happened to her besides finding out she had magic. She found herself humbled and all the more powerful for it. She had friends and a family within the wizarding world because of it.

The last time she had swung on those swings she so adored, it had been two years before the final battle. It was that night she would have to wipe the minds of her parents, destroying all evidence of her in their lives. She hardly wanted to do this, but this was the only way to keep them safe. They had thought she was acting strange that day, crying at random times and staring at them for quite a bit of time.

There was no way to tell them. They wouldn't understand. They would beg her, demand of her, to stay with them and leave that world of magic behind. But she couldn't. She was in too deep. It wasn't just "that world of magic" any more. It was her world, and she would fight and die for it if she had to.

She had to.

The time had come where outright war had broken out. People were being tortured and killed left and right. No one could be sure if anyone was ever safe. She just happened to be friends with one of the biggest players in the war. Even if she wanted to back down now, she couldn't.

No would she want to. This war was just as much hers as her friend's. This was a war against the oppression of people like herself and many, many others. Fighting for what was right came with a cost though. She couldn't protect her family and fight on the front lines too, and keeping her family safe was fairly close to an uphill battle unless she sent them away.

So send them away she did.

They would never again know their daughter ever existed. All their hugs and kisses and story times – all would be nothing to them. They would live their not even feeling the loss of memories. She would be nothing to them if she passed them in the street.

As she left their house that night for the last time, her heart broke. But she kept her head high and walked down the street, knowing they would be safe without her.

A few years had passed since she did that. She had seen pain and death up close a hundred times over by this time. Somehow she was still alive, still standing. She fought back to back with those she called family now, fighting down to the last breath time and time again.

On the dawn of the great battle, she clutched a cup of coffee in a cottage far from Hogwarts. The cottage was full and bustling with people. They knew the time was coming. She had rung the call for them to come to arms the night before, and no doubt the manor was far worse than this cottage in terms of business.

They all knew what their main job was. Keep _her_ alive. It was _her_ that needed to swing the final blow, and they would damned if she didn't make it that far.

Everyone shared meaningful glances in what could be their last morning together. They had come this far and this could be it for them, but they wouldn't back down. They were terrified by they kept the same mantra in mind: _she will prevail._ No matter what happened to them, she will prevail.

So she took her last sip of coffee and kept her name at the forefront of her mind like a prayer.

 _Aurelia_. _Aurelia. Aurelia._

* * *

He heard somewhere that it was called hindsight bias. To look back on a situation and think to himself that he knew that was going to happen the way it did, that he should've expected better really. But he knew now that he had to be stricter with himself. There was no way to know that things were going to turn out the way they did. It could have been different if he had been different. But he hadn't been.

No, he was exactly the sort of person who these kinds of things happened. There was never enough for him. He was part of a big family of little standing in the wizarding world. There wasn't enough for any of them. He got hand-me-downs, used, refurbished – anything and everything that was old, used, and worn out. Magic helped make at least some of that better, but largely it was crap.

His father had told him that he should count himself lucky. He told him that he was luckier than most children, to have a home and a family. Some didn't have either of those.

The way he saw it though, he might have a house, but it leaned towards the ground with the weight of the extra dimensions they continuously added to it. He might have a family, but they always got more than him. They got the looks, the brains, the magic, and the skills. What did he have? Nothing but useless leftovers.

When he got to Hogwarts, this feeling got even worse as he gained more and more exposure to the upper class of society. People like that rotten ferret. They had all the money in the world, and got all the attention too, and had the nerve to flaunt it around the less fortunate like himself. They were so much better than everyone else. They had the money and the prestige to last them a life time, and he had his great-aunt's wand and a deformed rat.

He didn't even have the rat any more. Even that turned out to be utter rubbish, just like everything else in his life. A murderer – just his luck! He was being permanently tortured for nothing other than being born into the wrong family.

In some ways, things had been a little better at Hogwarts. He, at least, was attending the most prestigious school in the world, even if on scholarship. Not all wizards could say they had enough power potential to attend Hogwarts. To top it off, the first person he met on the train was the most famous witch alive.

He knew from the moment he laid eyes on her that she was going to be his. Their families had fought side by side in the last war, they were both Light families. They said her family's descendants tended to have a liking for red hair.

He was practically glowing for the first couple of months of school.

Until he realized that he was sharing her with other people. She was friends with one of his roommates. Some would say they were closer than he was with her. Seeds of doubt began to grow in him.

They got worse as the next two years passed. She could speak with snakes. That was a dark trait. There was no way a Light witch could have that ability. And then she was always missing in their third year. She was running around hunting down mass murderers and learning to become more powerful. Why did she need more power? She was already the most famous witch alive. She was rich too. Wasn't that enough?

Then that damn Tournament happened. She had to go and find a way to become even more famous. That was the last straw for him. She was a good for nothing Dark witch and he wouldn't have her now. He made sure everyone knew he had nothing to do with her. He made sure they saw her for the witch she really was.

But of course not everyone saw it his way. Half his family turned against him within a year. They followed her around everywhere she went running. If she thought for a second that he didn't see that for what it was, she had to be stupid as well as Dark.

He put his full efforts into showing the world what she really was. He couldn't even do that right, as it ended up turning out. He fell in with the wrong people and there was no way out.

It was all her fault. If she could have just been Light like she was supposed to be, none of this would be happening. She would've done everything the way she was supposed to and this damned war would be over already and everything could go back to normal.

He grumbled to himself and kicked the ground. This entire thing came back to her, and she still found a way to act all high and mighty.

Damn her.

Damn this whole thing.

" _Potter_."

* * *

Some say she sees the world through a haze of madness, and she still doesn't quite understand what is wrong with that. If everyone saw the world clearly they would certainly lose a lot of mystery from it all. Seeing the world differently wasn't all that bad, honestly. It could be confusing at times, but who didn't like a little riddle every now and again?

Some had suggested that she was mad because she watched her mother die. She knew better. She had always been this way, a queer little child. Her parents never loved her any differently for it, they themselves being somewhat odd.

She had hardly cried as a babe, just smiled and watched absently as things moved around her. She did not talk for quite some time. The neighboring wizard families look at her parents with pity, but they just smiled at them. She will speak when she wants to, they told the people.

While she did not speak, she certainly got into some mischief. It was just her toddling days when she began chasing after creatures in the gardens, getting lost in bushes and tall grass. Her parents would seek her out worriedly, only to find her giggling, clapping, and dancing with nothing.

But they didn't worry. They just scooped her up and brought her home. They hadn't even thought much of it until they had mentioned in passing to a neighboring family and they suggested they take the girl to St. Mungo's.

Her parents had been confused. Their daughter wasn't ill. They checked her for symptoms every day, they told the family. She was perfectly healthy.

Still, the family said, take her to St. Mungo's. They said there might be something wrong with her head.

The only time she had ever seen her parents anything other than happy together was the moment someone suggested she was insane. Their rage was impressive.

It was then that she spoke her first words. At age four, she told her parents that their lights were pretty. She had giggled when the lights she spoke of changed color again as her parents became happy once more. Everything was perfect with just the three of them, the odd little bunch.

Everything was perfect until her mother had made a miscalculation in her spell weaving. She had known a minute before her mother began weaving that something was wrong. She ran up the stairs and burst into her mother's office just as the spell exploded, taking her mother from her.

Things had changed after that. Her father was still loved her every bit as he did before the accident, but he became more and more odd after the incident. He constantly wanted to know more and more about her creatures. What did she see? What were they showing her? She tried her best to explain and her father hung onto her every word, begin to print stories in his newspaper about them. She thought the loss of her mother exposed him to the very thing she had been born seeing.

Things were okay when she lived at home with him. It was nothing like what she faced when she started attended Hogwarts.

From the moment she opened her mouth to speak on the first train ride there, people were already questioning how in the world she had been accepted in Hogwarts. Talk like that spread like wildfire in schools with very few people in them. She watched the colors and the lines go from person to person, and before anyone knew it, everyone in her house was affected with the same thing.

It had been a lonely first year. She stuck to herself, learning magic dancing with her creatures. They told her everything was going to be alright, that this first year was going to be worth the suffering.

She did manage to make on friend in her short years leading up to Hogwarts, but once they got to Hogwarts she became just as distant as everyone else. But that turned out to have nothing to do with her in the end.

When her second year came, things started to look up. People still made fun of her, stole her things, and called her mean names, but she met new people. She met a boy who had silent strength and a girl who was taking the world by storm.

This girl dared to look at the world the same way she did. She knew the girl didn't quite understand what she saw, but she tried more than any others had.

Even if she hadn't tried, she knew what that girl was capable. She was worth sticking around for, even if she, like so many around her, thought her insane. But she didn't and it made it all the more worth it.

She was worth it but that girl certainly put people through the ringer. She made them work harder than ever before, determined to see them survive this ordeal. It was because of that girl, and things greater than her of course, that she saw so much death and horror. But she thought even without that girl they would have to see it. Maybe it would be worse. It was difficult to separate the futures from each other.

It was through the intensive work that the girl put them all through that they found a way to make her skills useful.

If there was anything she was particularly good at, it would be allowing her mind to wander so freely from the situation before her. Some called this distraction. If only they knew how much everything slows down once you leave the situation around you. Instead of hearing the shouts of curses and hexes being thrown in every direction around her, she heard the whispers of the fae and the spirits. Instead of seeing the bright putrid lights of magic, she saw the glows of auras and intent. She saw the strands connecting people to each other and the maps of their futures. Everything was much faster on that plane than the one where everyone was trying to kill each other.

She was dancing with the lights and the whispers. She giggled as they brushed over her. She followed them, as they bid.

The whispers called to her over and over again, saying _her_ name.

 _Aurelia…_

* * *

The only enemy that shall be destroyed is death. And Death has followed him since his first breath, lingering around him like a bad feeling of foreboding that he couldn't escape.

By the time of the final battle, it had been a long seventy years since his time in hell, otherwise known as an orphanage. He had been born into a world that had already outlawed child labor, but it hadn't done much to improve the conditions that children faced on a daily basis, much less the children who were parentless.

Orphanages were bursting at the seams in those days. Back to back wars and high mortality rates had children left in the dust everywhere. So they were all shipped away and packed into tight little corners where no one would be forced to see them on the streets. It was a hard living. The orphanages didn't have enough funding to support this many of them and the people who were placed in charge cared very little for children and seemed determined to make sure they all knew it. He never had a chance of being adopted, which went by rule that babies went first and then little girls. If you weren't in one of those categories, you didn't stand a chance.

It was a hard living and he should not have been there. He was special. He stood out from all those kids and they all knew it. He was quiet and solemn. He was a freak amongst the unfortunate. They hated him for it. They beat him and tormented him, becoming even more brutal with his quick recovery.

But one time became one time too many. A bunch of orphan boys had cornered him in an alley after chasing him for three blocks in the crushing summer heat. They surrounded him with sticks and rocks in hand. They were going to teach the little freak a lesson.

He was afraid of those children. He could only laugh at himself now. Him, afraid? That was a laugh, but it was necessary. It was in that moment that he had learned he was even more special than was conceivable.

He had pushed a force from himself that expelled the boys against the ground before they could even lay one of their filthy hands on him. They had run away scared after that. He had smiled to himself. From that point onward no one was going to mess with him and get away with it.

It was only a year later when the old man had come for him. Magic. He knew it, now he just had proof.

Hogwarts was a dream. He had classes with other people like him. He got to wear new clothes and use new books. He had a wand. It was everything he could have possibly wanted.

But there was something he noticed while attending these classes. There was a hierarchy that was particularly strict. He knew there would be some sort of system but he hadn't quite expected something as dated as to represent medieval times.

Still, he learned to use it to his advantage. He made sure that everyone knew he was powerful. He made friends with the right people, the powerful purebloods. They took him under their wing and taught him how the wizarding world worked and, inadvertently, how to make it work for him.

He was never going to be weak and powerless ever again. With each year in Hogwarts, he became more and more immersed in powerful magics, eventually learning ways to increase his power and his life span. Wizards lived quite an extended period of time but he wanted to avoid the whole death ordeal completely. And, of course, someone who wouldn't die would be perfect to rule the wizarding world. The regime would never change.

His goals were enormous, and he knew it. He had to have the most powerful names backing him. He to rule them, and then in turn, the people they ruled.

For the most part, it worked. Up until the seventies, he had been doing his best to collect powerful people, much like his favored Potions professor in school. He used every ounce of influence he could muster to draw more and more people to his side, even changing his name and claiming a lordship, which was simple to do through his mother's line. It was quite easy to do when they all had a common complaint to point their focus to. Muggleborns. According to most of these powerful names, Muggleborns and Muggles were an abomination that sought to infringe on their world. They had no place in the wizarding world.

When he discovered that his father was alive and a Muggle, he had been both furious and concerned. A father who had never claimed him was a shame and a mark of disgust for him. But a Muggle father, that could undermine his plan for power. He rid himself of such an issue immediately. It was hardly his first kill and he couldn't be bothered to care about a man who abandoned him.

He developed his own hatred for Muggles that helped his campaign. His hatred for them increased his popularity with the Pureblood elitists, especially when he began to devise ways to strike back at the Muggle world. They began attacking Muggles and Muggleborns alike. And that was when the war began.

He was hardly afraid of war. He couldn't be killed and he had the support of a large amount of powerful families and dark creatures. The war was in his favor.

Until the prophecy that is. A child who had the power to undo him. Well that just wouldn't do. He had thought it simple then. Kill the child and stay safe forever.

If only it had worked. That damned child had been the bane of his existence since she came kicking into the world. An infant was his undoing. A little girl fifty years younger than him.

No matter what plan he devised, she undid him at every turn, no matter if she was a toddler or an eleven year old student who hardly knew how to hold her wand. He had taken down many of her people but she had done the same to him. No one could be as powerful as him for his plans to work. It just couldn't happen. But somehow she was.

He would not lose. He would defeat this child just like he would defeat death. With force.

He brandished his wand and, finally, headed into the battle he had been so sure he wouldn't have to enter himself. A raging scream broke from his chest as he ran on air.

"AURELIA –"


End file.
